Shustoke Reservoir lies two miles east of Coleshill on the B4114 Coleshill to Furnace End Road, south of the River Bourne. At 1.5km west to east, the main pool is only 400m at its widest point. The River Bourne feeds the smaller eastern pool (8 acres), the water is then transferred to the main reservoir (92 acres). Disturbance at weekends can be a problem.

Monday, 9 April 2012

Monday 9th April

Tipping down with rain but we decided to walk the dog around the reservoir and see if anything had dropped in. On arrival it looked rather quiet but there were loads of people around they weather was putting them off.

It was pretty uneventful and I wasn’t searching much as it was raining rather hard. I then saw a pipit, it was feeding on the edge but I had no sooner seen it than it flew about 20 yards along the shoreline. We got a bit closer and I could see the bird was grey headed with a supercillium and had a pinkish wash to the breast, I started to think Water Pipit but it was too heavily streaked on the breast, but it was so wet and the light so bad plus wet binoculars it wasn’t easy. I managed to clean my bins out of the wind, then I circled back to have another look. The bird was far to streaked on the underparts to be Water Pipit but too well marked to be a typical Rock Pipit. The thought was springing to mind that it was more than likely a Scandanavian Rock Pipit, I texted a few people and Steve Haynes texted me back to say “sound like Scandanavian Rock Pipit’. The bird was rather nervous and on several occasions took flight only to relocated until it was flushed again. All in all it favoured the area on the north shore near the second bench.

I went back over this afternoon when I mistakenly thought the weather was improving. I did see the bird and got a couple of record shots, Dave Hutton also had his camera and has kindly provided the three shots below plus one of Grey Wagtail.

Also today at on various visits I had three Swallow, three Sand Martin, two LRP’s and one Common Sandpiper. This evening there where 3 Goosander and the Scaup was still in its usual place.